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Does your instrument have a story? [page 8]
Thoughts from the President As we come to the end of another exciting year at the Cleveland Institute of Music, one marvels at how our students and graduates continue to push forward, both into the world of further higher education and into the music industry with a sense of excitement and empowerment. I have come to see our students and graduates–every one of them–as heroic. Our students well comprehend the challenges of the artistic life and continue to choose that life with awareness and consciousness. Why? It is because of what they have encountered here at CIM.
Now is an important time for CIM to be even more widely heralded and more amply supported for all of its accomplishments and for all that is so special and unique about the institution.
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They have seen around them a faculty that loves what they do, the life that they lead, cares deeply about their students and that takes great joy both in music-making on the stage and teaching in the studio. While at CIM, our students have tasted the joys of living within a community where their musical voice is developed and heard and where artistic conformity is firmly rejected. I am hopeful that our local, national and global supporters will wish to reward CIM ever more generously for the hard work our faculty puts into bringing artists of great significance onto the world’s stages, into the great body of players that constitutes The Cleveland Orchestra and into the world of teaching. We are a very special school. And we can all exult in our alumni’s successes, seen over and over within all areas of the musical world. As we enter a summer season of preparation for a new academic year, we welcome this July a new and dedicated Chair of the Board, Mr. Richard J. Hipple. (You can learn more about Mr. Hipple on page 6). CIM can proudly take responsibility for so much of what is good in the world of music. Now is an important time for CIM to be even more widely heralded and more amply supported for all of its accomplishments and for all that is so special and unique about the institution.
— Joel Smirnoff
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Photo: Courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives
The Marriage of Classical and Jazz
The inventor of “Third Stream” engages the CIM community.
ABOVE CIM Kulas Visiting Artist, Gunther Schuller, conducting in the Koussevitzky Music Shed, ca. 1976 (story page 12) ON THE COVER Does your instrument have a story? Hear from CIM faculty on the histories behind their most prized possessions (story page 8)
DEPARTMENTS
FEATURES
4 Noteworthy 2015 Commencement Weekend Events 2015 Commencement Dignitaries Alum appointed NY Phil concertmaster New Board Chairman, Richard J. Hipple Prep. & Continuing Ed. Commencement Lunch & Listen continues this summer
8 Does your instrument have a story? NOTES asks faculty about their instruments’ pasts, stories, details and quirks
16 Events Faculty-Fest!
12 The Marriage of Classical and Jazz Great American composer Gunther Schuller shares his experiences at CIM this semester
18 Development Donor Profile: Irad and Rebecca Carmi 20 Alumni Snapshot Grammy winner Jason Vieaux 22 Listings Alumni Appointments Prizewinners Faculty Students Preparatory In Memoriam
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Noteworthy
cleveland institute of music
Commencement Weekend Events
2015
Honors Convocation Friday, May 15, in Mixon Hall, 4pm Presentation of annual prizes, awards and recognition of alumni dignitaries
"Walking"
Commencement Saturday, May 16, in Kulas Hall Conferral of degrees upon graduates and dignitaries Preparatory Commencement Sunday, May 17, in Kulas Hall Recognition of high school seniors who have made a commitment to musical education This May, CIM students from the Conservatory as well as Preparatory and Continuing Education divisions stepped on stage and had their achievements recognized. During the Conservatory Commencement ceremony Mal Mixon received an honorary doctorate and was recognized for his 17 accomplishmentfilled years serving as CIM’s chairman of the board. The great American composer, author, administrator, writer and thought leader Gunther Schuller addressed the 2015 graduating class in his keynote commencement speech. Congratulations to both CIM classes of 2015!
Joel speaking
2015 CIM Conservatory Commencement Photos: Steven Mastroianni
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Distinguished Alumni Award
Trumpet player Glenn Fischthal (BM ’70, Adelstein) is not only an internationally renowned musician; he’s also the kind of guy you can shoot a game of pool with. In fact, when Fischthal played his last concert with the San Francisco Symphony in 2012, retiring after 32 years as both associate principal and principal trumpet, he hurried to the green room during intermission to finish a severalmonth-long pool tournament with his colleagues. This, of course, was directly following a flawless trumpet solo of the Beatles’ “Penny Lane” from Fischthal in the first half of the program. Before his tenure with the San Francisco Symphony, a 21-year-old Fischthal went on tour with The Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of George Szell and Pierre Boulez. He held positions with the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra and Kansas City Philharmonic and served as principal trumpet for the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, San Diego Symphony and Israel Philharmonic. Fischthal is a founding member of The Bay Brass, a cooperative of artists from some of the area’s foremost organizations, including the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra, the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Symphony Silicon Valley. With this group, Fischthal is involved in commissioning new works for brass ensembles. The Bay Brass’s recording Sound The Bells! was nominated for a Grammy for best small ensemble performance. Fischthal’s first day at CIM
Alumni Achievement Award
Oboist Frank Rosenwein (BM ’00, Mack) was drawn to the oboe when his childhood clarinet teacher told him it was a difficult instrument to play. It’s safe to say Rosenwein has lived up to the challenge—he is now finishing up his ninth season as principal oboe of The Cleveland Orchestra. Rosenwein graduated in 2000 from CIM, where he studied with former Cleveland Orchestra principal oboe John Mack. He then went on to earn a master’s degree from Juilliard. Before his position with the Orchestra, Rosenwein served as principal oboe of the San Diego Symphony and the San Diego Opera. Rosenwein is an avid chamber musician, no matter the venue. He is a regular at the Marlboro Festival and has performed with the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, The Seattle Chamber Music Society and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. But he is also a part of the unique group called Ensemble HD, which is known for playing chamber music in nontraditional venues—including dive bars. In addition to his performance career, Rosenwein holds teaching positions as head of the oboe department at CIM and at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival.
Every musician has to have a spark within—a voice needing to be heard, a yearning needing fulfillment—but also needs a place where those diaphanous things can be made into solid stuff; the stuff of discipline, of precision, of experience and of inspiration. For me, such a place is CIM. S P R I N G 2 0 15
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Noteworthy Alumnus Appointed Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic Alumnus Frank Huang (BM ’02) is wrapping up his final season as concertmaster of the Houston Philharmonic before he joins the New York Philharmonic as its new concertmaster in September. Huang completed his BM from CIM in 2002 and graduated from the CIM Young Artists Program in 1997. He was a student of Donald Weilerstein. Huang, who began his CIM studies at age 16, told The New York Times of his recent appointment, “I’m lucky to have had fantastic teachers who helped me not only improve on the instrument but helped me develop this love of what music can do, how it can change your life.” Huang will replace Glenn Dicterow, who served in the highly coveted position for 34 years.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist
CIM Names Richard J. Hipple New Chairman of the Board
CIM announced earlier this year that Richard J. Hipple will now serve as the new chairman of CIM’s Board of Trustees. His term begins on July 1, 2015. Mr. Hipple, who is chairman, president and chief executive officer of Materion Corporation, received a unanimous vote from CIM’s Board of Trustees during its March 10 meeting. CIM’s current board chairman, A. Malachi Mixon III, announced his retirement last fall after serving more than 17 years; he will complete his term on June 30, 2015. A member of the CIM Board of Trustees since July 2010, Mr. Hipple currently serves on the Board’s investment and audit committees. “Mr. Hipple has provided a wealth of thoughtful and conscientious leadership as a member of our Board, qualities that will serve us well as he assumes the role of chairman. We are grateful for his willingness to serve in a new and heightened capacity and view it as a strong endorsement of CIM within the greater Cleveland community. We look forward with great anticipation to his tenure,” said Joel Smirnoff, president and CEO of the Cleveland Institute of Music.
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Mr. Hipple has been with Materion since 2001 and has served as chairman, president and CEO since 2006. Materion, an international company that specializes in manufacturing high-performance engineered materials, is headquartered in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. Prior to Materion, Mr. Hipple was with LTV Steel for 26 years, where he also served as president. Mr. Hipple also serves as an outside director at Key Corp and Ferro Corporation.
Fourth Annual Preparatory Commencement
The Preparatory and Continuing Education Division honored graduates, outstanding seniors and excellent faculty in a private commencement ceremony on May 17. Trustee Carl E. Baldassarre served as master of ceremony. Amy Nathan, author of The Young Musician’s Survival Guide and The Music Parent’s Survival Guide, gave the commencement address, sharing advice and firsthand experience about parenting aspiring musicians. A parent of a musician in her own right, Nathan detailed the challenges and joys of navigating the musical education landscape from both parent and young musician perspectives. Faculty members Judson Billings and Kimberly Meier-Sims were both awarded Excellence in Teaching Awards. An alumnus who received both his BM and MM from CIM, Billings was chosen by nomination for his outstanding contributions to the piano department for more than 37 years. Meier-Sims, a highly-regarded teacher-trainer of Suzuki violin, was nominated for her leadership of and contributions to the Sato Center for Suzuki Studies. Student Megan Lee was awarded the coveted Outstanding Senior Award. Lee distinguished herself throughout her tenure at CIM by earning outstanding awards and achievements both musically and academically, and by her many contributions to the community at large through fund-raising for various causes, bringing music to schools, senior communities and other such venues. This year Lee was the Music of the Western Reserve’s Featured Young Artist.
2015
If It’s Summer, It’s Time for Lunch & Listen
Join us for CIM’s annual summer musical treats, Lunch & Listen Recitals. Each summer, CIM alumni and their special guests offer free lunch-hour concerts every Tuesday in July in CIM’s beautiful Mixon Hall. This year’s schedule includes:
July 7: Julia Russ, piano
July 14: Linda White and Bob Gruca, flute and guitar
July 21: Ariel Clayton and Classical Revolution Cleveland
2015 Preparatory Commencement Photos: Steven Mastroianni
Concerts begin at 12:30pm; the patio will be open beginning at 11am for guests to bring a bag lunch and enjoy time with friends. Free beverages are provided. For more information, contact Char Rapoport Nance, Development Officer, Alumni and Parent Relations, 216.795.3169, CRN17@cim.edu.
July 28: Madeline Lucas Tolliver with various chamber music ensembles S P R I N G 2 0 15
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Does your instrument have a story? We asked CIM faculty to share the histories, details and quirks behind their most prized possessions
They sing, they dance, they inspire and they captivate. They are inanimate, but have stories and histories that predate many of their owners. They are the lifeblood of musicians, manipulated to bring some of the most inspiring sounds to life. They are musical instruments. And many of CIM’s faculty members play instruments that contain rich histories, storied pasts, interesting parts and delightful quirks.
The Margo Merry Peckham (cello, Cavani Quartet) My cello was one of the few things a family took with them when they escaped the Nazis in, I believe, Austria. They had the clothes on their backs, some jewelry and this cello. The player of the cello was a young, teenaged woman named Margo. Margo's family escaped to London, and she later got married and moved to Denver. She played for a while in the community orchestra and then put the cello in a closet and taught piano to many of the children in the neighborhood. When she passed, her daughter acquired the cello, which had basically been sitting in a closet for about 40 years, and had the instrument restored. Margo's daughter and son-in-law, Yvonne and Richard Burry, were on the board of the Columbus Chamber Music Society. They happened to get in touch with Annie Fullard from my quartet because Annie had borrowed a Fine instrument and they wanted to find out how you loan an instrument – do you have a contract, and how do you handle insurance? Annie helped the Burrys and then asked them if they had a cellist in mind. They said they wanted to give it to a professional because they wanted it to be cared for. Annie said she knew a cellist who might be interested. So the Burrys contacted me! I just went to their house, had dinner, played the cello, compared it to mine and told them what I liked about it. I didn’t realize it was an audition. A week later they contacted me and asked if I would like to use it for a few years. And that was almost ten years ago.
The Guadagnini Worth the Wait Brian Thornton (cello) I have a cello that was made by J B Guadagnini in 1771 in Turin, Italy. It was once owned by the cellist David Popper when he performed with the Vienna Philharmonic from October 1, 1865, until September 30, 1868. That means he would’ve been performing on this cello with the orchestra when Verdi premiered his Requiem and Aida there. Yes, it does seem like the Popper études are easier to play on this cello! When I first got into the Cleveland Orchestra I looked for a better cello. We went on tour and stopped in Zurich. I knew that a short train ride away from Zurich was the only privately held stash of antique string instruments that could be rented by musicians for long periods of time, and that the rental cost would go toward the purchase of the instrument. No other such place existed at that time in 1994. I went and played great cellos for eight hours a day for two days, and in the end I decided I loved a Guadagnini cello they had in the store. It had a beautiful sound with many colors and was small and easy to get around on. I tried in vain to rent this cello, but it was not to be. I ended up purchasing my first cello with my own money: an Ornati cello made in Milan in 1926. However, ever since I have loved Guadagninis for their beautiful, powerful sound and small frames. I saw this cello for the first time in pieces in the shop of Christophe Landon in New York City about three years ago. It was being repaired after some hard use. It already looked gorgeous and I was able to purchase the cello before it was put together using cellos I owned and a deposit. It took two years to put together and now the instrument is incredible and getting better every day. It has become a really beautiful instrument and is a historically significant instrument that I am lucky to perform on forever.
Now I call the Burrys my cello angels. They come and visit me every summer on Shelter Island. The cello is called “the Margo” as a tribute to Yvonne's mother. Although I feel that due to the deep, masculine tone, the cello is male – its name is “Margo.” So that’s the story. S P R I N G 2 0 15
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The White Upright Tanya Kapinos (piano) When I came to Cleveland from Russia 25 years ago, I didn’t have any money to buy a piano. Hebrew Free Loan Association of Cleveland loaned me the money that enabled me to buy my upright. I’m still using and enjoying it! The piano is a white upright named Schumann (Korean, I believe). Honestly, I don't remember all the details about the loan–it was so long ago, probably more than 20 years–except one: it was a free loan, no interest. Hebrew Free Loan Association helps people in need, and I was a single mother at the time with very little money, recently from Russia. I'm very grateful to the Association; the loan enabled me to start my piano studio.
The Shape Shifter Jeffrey Irvine (viola) I play a modern viola made in 1983 by Hiroshi Iizuka. He's a Japanese maker who was trained in Mittenwald, Germany, and lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My viola has an unusual shape: both shoulders are cut down from the normal viola shape, allowing easier access to high positions. Iizuka makes three models of violas: a standard model, my model with the cut-down shoulders and a model with normal shoulders but wide lower bouts. There are a couple of other makers who make a model similar to mine. Deborah Price of the Columbus Chamber Music Connection plays one of these similar models by a different maker. Iizuka makes violins, violas and cellos, but he is most widely known for his violas. Other prominent violists who play or have played Iizukas are Michael Tree and the late Emmanuel Vardi.
Jeffrey Irvine’s viola
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The Landolfi Look-Alike Kirsten Docter (viola, Cavani Quartet) I don’t know much about my viola, but it’s falsely labeled as a Carlo Landolfi made in Milan. I do know it’s not that–if it was, the price tag would’ve had an extra 0 at the end, before the .00! It used to be common practice to put false labels on instruments, and when I bought it, about 20 years ago, the man I bought it from didn’t even pretend it was a Landolfi. We do know that it was probably from Milan from the late 1700s. If you want to get someone to tell you how much your instrument is worth, they often charge 10 percent of the value for the appraisal, which would be a lot of money. And you would have to find someone who you really trust. I bought my viola from a man in Iowa who co-owned it with someone else, but it was mostly sitting in a drawer and not being played. You can usually tell the date and location of the instrument from things such as how the f-holes are carved or by the shape of the scroll.
The Oldies but Goodies
The Chameleon
Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson (violin and cello)
Carl Topilow (director, Orchestral Program)
I [Jamie] have two violins that I play. I alternate between a Nicola Amati that was made in 1683 and a Domenico Montagnana made in 1738. The Montagnana was played on for many years by Josef Roisman, who was first violin of the Budapest String quartet, which was the string quartet from the 1930s to the 1960s. The Amati at one time belonged to Niccolò Paganini, who bought it for Spagnoletti, the concertmaster of Paganini’s orchestra. According to the papers I have, the top of the violin was taken off for repairs and “Spagnoletti” was seen written on the inside corner of the instrument.
I saw a red clarinet in a music store window in Munich, Germany, and thought that it would be nice to have one. I started with a red clarinet (there’s the famous Red Violin, why not the Red Clarinet?), and then purchased a green, a blue and a white clarinet; all were bought at Educators Music in Lakewood. These clarinets are made of plastic, and cost about $350 each.
Sharon plays a Stradivarius cello made in 1717 known as the “Fleming Strad.” This was owned and played by Amaryllis Fleming, the British cello performer and teacher and sister of Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond series. She’s been playing it for about five years. Sharon and I both also have modern instruments. We use them quite a lot but mostly like to loan them out to students who don’t have nice instruments or to those playing in recitals. Most of our modern instruments are on loan with students at the moment.
I’ve used these clarinets for various occasions with the Cleveland Pops and as guest conductor: the red clarinet for “My Funny Valentine,” the blue clarinet for “Stardust,” the green clarinet for “Danny Boy.” I’m also able to interchange parts, so the red and white clarinet works for Leroy Anderson’s “Clarinet Candy”; the red, white and blue clarinet for “Stars and Stripes” when I join the piccolos for the famous obbligato; the green, white and red clarinet for my “Italian Medley”; the red and green clarinet for Christmas; and the blue and white clarinet for Hanukkah. These clarinets have become my trademark, in a sense, and if I happen to play my wooden black clarinet, which of course is a better instrument, there is always an audience member who wants to know why I didn’t play my red clarinet.
Talk about adding on the zeros! Take a look at some of the most expensive classical music instruments in the world:
1. Antonio Stradivari “MacDonald” viola: $45,000,000
(Auction price)
2. Antonio Stradivari “The Messiah” violin: $20,000,000
3. Guarneri del Gesù “Vieuxtemps” violin: $18,000,000 (Owner: private owner) 4. Antonio Stradivari “Lady Blunt” violin: $16,000,000
Watch David Aaron Carpenter play Suite No. 3 in C by Johann Sebastian Bach on the world’s most expensive instrument, the Antonio Stradivari “MacDonald” viola on YouTube: youtu.be/Xe11Pp1g39I
(Estimated value, on display at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
(Owner: Nippon Music Foundation)
5. Guarneri del Gesù “Ex-Kochanski” violin $10,000,000
(Owner: unknown)
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THE MARRIAGE OF CLASSICAL AND JAZZ The inventor of “Third Stream” engages the CIM community
He’s worked with Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, won two Grammy awards in classical music categories and received a Pulitzer Prize for composition, so it was clear to see why President Joel Smirnoff introduced Gunther Schuller at CIM as one of the greatest musicians our country has produced.
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Gunther Schuller with a group of composition fellows at Tanglewood, ca. 1963. Photo: Peter Weissenstein, Whitestone Photo
Schuller was this year’s Kulas Visiting Artist, which afforded the CIM community three visits by the musical icon that culminated in his commencement address to CIM graduates in May. During his visits, the multi-talented Schuller was busy. He held master classes with horn students, offering advice that ranged from “there’s no wa wa in horn playing” to the importance of all eight dynamics; he dazzled composition students with stories of watching Duke Ellington expertly noodle away on the piano while scratching down bits of music in a jazz club after hours; and he worked alongside master guest conductor Kimbo Ishii as he led the CIM Orchestra in playing Schuller’s “Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959)” during its CIM@Home concert in April.
JAZZ AS GOOD AS BEETHOVEN
The now 89-year-old Schuller grew up in an era in the United States when both jazz and classical music were booming–both of which not only shaped him as a musician but also embody his legacy. He lived and worked successfully in New York City, but you won’t find a list of degrees and alma maters attached to his name. Schuller was completely self-taught (he restricted himself to just four hours of sleep a night for most of his career), and he says when people
asked him who his teachers were he simply replied, “studying scores, listening to recordings and playing in an orchestra.” And play he did. By the age of 17, he was the first horn chair for the Cincinnati Symphony and at age 19, he was the first horn chair for the Metropolitan Opera, where he remained for 15 years. However, classical music wasn’t his only passion. While performing with the Metropolitan Opera, he was simultaneously playing French horn on Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool album. Schuller recalled speaking with his father (a violinist in the New York Philharmonic) one morning many years ago. “I said, ‘you know, Pop, I heard some incredible [jazz] music last night and it was as good as Beethoven.’ My father almost had a heart attack!” Schuller said with a laugh, explaining that his father had thought his son would abandon classical music. That, as it turned out, was far from the case.
THIRD STREAM
“At that time there were two forms of music,” said Schuller. “There was jazz and there was classical. Half of Americans listened to jazz and the other half listened to classical. And they didn’t talk to each other.” Schuller, however, worked with both styles, inventing Third Stream—the marriage of jazz and classical music; two main streams
combining to make a third. “Of course I was vilified on both sides for saying that,” he recounted. “They said you can’t mix oil and water.” But Schuller did mix the two, performing and composing music inspired by both, seemingly dissimilar musical genres. It was free-flowing jazz meets the rigor and structure of classical. Eventually the two genres realized they could work together. In an op-ed Schuller wrote for The New York Times in 1959, he explained, “…if a Bartók, by virtue of his musical integrity and intimate knowledge of Balkan folk sources, was able to integrate these elements with his own musical concepts, thus creating some of the most highly respected works of twentieth-century music, it would seem conceivable that in the near future some gifted composer may achieve a similar integration using jazz elements.” He was defending Third Stream to the “purists,” as he called them, who sat on both sides of the musical spectrum. However, Schuller had many fans and despite their avant-garde nature, his pieces were beginning to be heard all over the world, including multiple performances of his work at Carnegie Hall. In 1959, New York Times music critic Eric Salzman wrote S P R I N G 2 0 15
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of one of Schuller’s pieces performed at the Empire State Music Festival, “Although the written-out parts are based on twelve-tone technique and the twelve-bar blues form is extended to thirteen bars, the clean scoring and forward rhythmic motion blended well with the ‘cool’ improvising of the jazz musicians.” And in 1962 Salzman again commented, “Schuller’s various musical activities are not unconnected with his creative work. In his music one can hear the instrumental know-how of the wind player; the idiomatic and finely calculated orchestral sensibility of the conductor; the technical master and brilliant eclecticism of the modern music expert; and the controlled freedom and invention of a creative personality that knows and understands jazz.” While Schuller was advocating for his work, he was also teaching, completing a stint at the Manhattan School and then holding the position of professor of composition at Yale University. In 1963 he began teaching at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood and eventually served as its artistic director. From 1967 to 1977 he served as the president of the New England Conservatory where, in a historic move, he established a jazz program.
THE MASTER CLASS MASTER
This past semester CIM students and faculty were able to hear and learn from the legend himself. The first event: a horn master class with one of the greats at the helm.
Schuller works with horn students Nathan Peebles and Alexander Rise (above) and Joanna Ying-Ho Huang (below) in Mixon Hall
In a bright Mixon hall, Schuller waited on stage, slightly offset from student Katie Clement, who played the first movement of Schuller’s “Intermezzo: Homage à Frederick Delius,” written in 1942. When she finished the piece, Schuller clapped and smiled. Then he launched right in. “The horn,” he said “is one of the great lyric instruments. It’s also one of the great heroic instruments.” He gave Clement advice on the dynamics of the piece, recalling at the drop of a hat (remember, he wrote this piece 73 years ago) that he’d specified piano dynamics in one section he thought could be played even softer. “The horn is one of the most difficult instruments
Photos: Leigh-Anne Dennison
Gunther SCHULLER Timeline
1925
November 22, 1925 Born
1943-1945
Principal horn in the Cincinnati Symphony
1945-1959
Horn player in the Metropolitan Opera Photo: Courtesy of the New England Conservatory
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1949-1950
French horn player on Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool recording
1950-1964
Taught at the Manhattan School of Music
1964-1967
Professor of composition at Yale University
1967
1967-1977
President of the New England Conservatory
1968
Wrote Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development
because from middle C up, it’s harder and harder to play soft. It wants to be loud,” he said. “From middle C down, it loses its projection.”
barrier, and to fighting against pigeonholing and categorizing music and musicians.” For Schuller, he’s satisfied to “perform all good music equally happy.”
When the next horn student, sophomore Joanna Ying-Ho Huang, stepped onto the stage, Schuller advocated the importance of hearing a note in one’s head before it’s played. He even asked Huang to sing a few bars. “Singing is the secret to horn playing,” said Schuller.
To listen to the CIM Orchestra’s performance of Schuller’s “Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959),” visit livestream.com/cim/CIMOapr8
Huang was grateful for the chance to play and receive feedback from one of the great horn players of our time. “Not only did I learn how to play horn with more air support, I also learned how to play horn more as a vocalist,” Huang said. The third performance was a duet by freshman Nathan Peebles and senior Alexander Rise. “It was a privilege to work with Mr. Schuller,” said Peebles. “It’s not every day that I am able to perform a piece for a world-renowned composer/musician/ philanthropist. What makes it even more astonishing is that he coached us on his very own composition. Mr. Schuller was able to provide insight into the art of horn playing with his experience as a distinguished professional for many years.”
BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS
Even while he was performing, Schuller always had composing on his mind. He ate up good music with fervor, continually listening and absorbing. “I was a horn player, sitting in the orchestra as a composer. When you play all these great masterpieces by Mozart and Verdi and Wagner and Strauss, my god! I really studied all that while I was playing,” he recounted. On top of all of that orchestra listening, Schuller was also an avid record collector and still has his collection of more than three thousand 78 recordings. This hunger for music and openness to new styles that he so eloquently fused with classical made him a great composer of his time. “Why can’t we be in love with all good music, whether it comes from a kind of popular or folk source, or from the highest Mount Olympus of music?” Schuller asked in a 1977 New York Times article. “Let it just be said that I’ve devoted my whole adult life to breaking down that
1969-1984
Artistic director of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood
1974
Won Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for his recording, Scott Joplin: The Red Back Book
Gunther Schuller giving the 2015 Commencement Address at CIM Photo: Steven Mastroianni
1976
Won the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes for Footlifters
1991
Awarded the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Award
1994
Awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his piece Of Reminiscenes and Reflections
1997
Wrote the follow-up to Early Jazz, Swing Era: the Development of Jazz, 1930-1945, as well as The Compleat Conductor
2015
Cleveland Institute of Music Kulas Visiting Artist
2015
Awarded MacDowell Medal
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Events
Faculty Fest!
CIM faculty members are attending music festivals all over globe this summer. Be sure to check them out, if your summer plans take you nearby! Advanced Stanford Suzuki Institute at Stanford Palo Alto, CA Stephen Sims (violin, Sato Center for Suzuki Studies) August 9-13
Chamber Music Festival of Lexington Lexington, KY Jason Vieaux (head, guitar) August 26-30
Kimberly Meier-Sims (director, Sato Center for Suzuki Studies) August 9-13
Changsha Guitar Festival Changsha, China Jason Vieaux (head, guitar) July 27-August 1
Aspen Music Festival Aspen, CO Frank Rosenwein (head, oboe) July 19-31
Chopin Symposium Boston, MA Antonio Pompa-Baldi (piano) June 26-28
Atlanta Suzuki Institute Roswell, GA Kimberly Meier-Sims (director, Sato Center for Suzuki Studies) June 20-26
CIM's Summer Sonata Program Cleveland, OH Sean Schulze (chair, Preparatory Division Piano) June 14-20
Bard Music Festival Annandale-on-Hudson, NY Jason Vieaux (head, guitar) August 7-9 Bowdoin International Music Festival at Bowdoin College Brunswick, ME Jeffrey Irvine (viola) July 18-August 7 Breckenridge Music Festival Breckenridge, CO Jason Vieaux (head, guitar) June 25-27 Britt Festival Orchestra Jacksonville, OR Ida Mercer (cello) July 27-August 15 Chamber Music Connection Columbus, OH Merry Peckham (cello, Cavani String Quartet) May 15-16
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Antonio Pompa-Baldi (piano) June 14-20 CIM Young Composers Program Cleveland, OH Keith Fitch (head, composition) June 14-20 Classical Singer National Convention Chicago, IL Dean Southern (voice) May 22-24 Colorado College Summer Music Festival Colorado Springs, CO Steven Rose (violin) June 7-17 Eastern Music Festival Greensboro, NC Jason Vieaux (head, guitar) July 15-20 Grand Teton Summer Festival Jackson Hole, WY Richard Weiner (co-head, timpani and percussion) July 6-20
Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival Southfield, MI Sharon Robinson (cello) June 20, 21 and 23 Jaime Laredo (violin) June 20, 21 and 23 Heifetz International Music Institute Staunton, VA Jeffrey Irvine (viola) June 27- July 11 Honest Brook Music Festival Meredith, NY Sharon Robinson (cello) August 8-9 Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle at Bard College Red Hook, NY Sharon Robinson (cello) June 27 Jaime Laredo (violin) June 27 Interlochen Viola Workshop Interlochen, MI Jeffrey Irvine (viola) June 22-23 Ithaca Suzuki Institute Ithaca, NY Kimberly Meier-Sims (director, Sato Center for Suzuki Studies) June 28-July 10 Stephen Sims (violin, Sato Center for Suzuki Studies) June 28-July 10 Karen Tuttle Coordination Conference at NYU New York, NY Jeffrey Irvine (viola) June 12-14 Kent/Blossom Music Festival Cuyahoga Falls, OH Steven Rose (violin) Last week of June and second week of July
Kingston Music Festival Kingston, RI Jason Vieaux (head, guitar) July 21-26
Napa Music Festival Napa, CA Dean Southern (voice) June 20-July 13
Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival Colchester, VT Frank Rosenwein (head, oboe) August 22-30
National Orchestral Institute College Park, MD Steven Rose (violin) June 22-24
Lev Aronson Legacy Music Festival, Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX Brian Thornton (cello) June 6-11
National Repertory Orchestra Summer Festival Breckenridge, CO Carl Topilow (director, Orchestral Program) June 13-July 31
Madeline Island Music Camp Madeline Island, WI Kirsten Docter (viola, Cavani String Quartet) June 14-July 27
Oregon Suzuki Institute at George Fox University Newberg, OR Adam Whiting (staff accompanist) June 27-July 3
Martha Argerich Project– Lugano Festival Lugano, Switzerland Sergei Babayan (piano) June 27-29
The Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop Shelter Island, NY Merry Peckham (cello, Cavani String Quartet) June 7-20
The Masterworks Festival Winona Lake, IN Lisa Boyko (viola) June 14-July 12 Mimir Chamber Music Festival Ft. Worth, TX Steven Rose (violin) June 29-July 6 Mimir Chamber Music Festival Melbourne Melbourn, Australia Steven Rose (violin) August 23-September 5 Music Academy of the West Summer School & Festival Santa Barbara, CA Peter Salaff (director, String and Piano Chamber Music) June 15-August 8
Peter Salaff (director, String and Piano Chamber Music) June 7-20 The Perlman Music Program Summer Music School Shelter Island, NY Merry Peckham (cello, Cavani String Quartet) July 3-August 14 Kirsten Docter (viola, Cavani String Quartet) July 3-August 14 Seattle Chamber Music Festival Seattle, WA Steven Rose (violin) July 26-August 1 Steamboat Springs Strings Music Festival Steamboat Springs, CO Frank Rosenwein (head, oboe) August 6-9
Steamboat Springs Strings Music Festival Steamboat Springs, CO Jason Vieaux (head, guitar) August 3-5 Summer Piano Camp at Charleston Southern University's Horton School of Music Charleston, SC Grace Huang (piano, Preparatory and Continuing Education) June 22-27 Todi International Music Masters Festival Todi, Italy Antonio Pompa-Baldi (piano) July 27-August 9 University of South Carolina Southeastern Piano Festival Columbia, SC Sergei Babayan (piano) June 14 Western Reserve Chamber Festival Hudson, OH Rachel Huch (violin) July 27-31 Young Artist Program in Composition, Rocky Ridge Music Center Estes Park, CO Keith Fitch (head, composition) June 23-July 26 Young Artist World Piano Festival St. Paul, MN Sean Schulze (chair, Preparatory Division Piano) July 8-18
For more information and a complete listing of faculty concerts, events and summer plans, please visit cim.edu/faculty/summer
S P R I N G 2 0 15
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DONOR PROFILE:
Rebecca and Irad Carmi One Scholarship Inspires Another They met in the early eighties in Theory 201 and today, they’ve funded a scholarship for an Israeli student to study at CIM. Irad and Rebecca Carmi were 22 when they came to CIM, Irad from Israel on a scholarship and Rebecca with an undergraduate degree in comparative literature from Brown University already under her belt. Irad was a flutist, drawn to the school by Jeff Khaner, the thenprincipal flutist in The Cleveland Orchestra; Rebecca, a Cleveland native, enrolled after urging by George Vassos, the head of the CIM voice department at the time. “It was one of the coldest winters on record until this one, my first year at CIM,” remembered Irad. “In Israel there are no winters by Cleveland standards!” After graduating, Rebecca and Irad both shared success as performers. Irad performed as soloist at Carnegie Hall with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. He also soloed with the Garden State Chamber Orchestra, the Israel Sinfonietta and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. Irad held principal flute positions with the Israel Sinfonietta, the Israel Pops Orchestra, the AIMS Festival Orchestra, the Harrisburg Symphony and the School of American Ballet Orchestra in Lincoln Center. Rebecca gave recitals throughout the United States, Israel and Europe at the Jerusalem Theater with the Jerusalem Symphony, at Carnegie Hall, the Warsaw Opera House and with the American Opera Center in Los Angeles. By the mid ’90s, Irad and Rebecca were back in the United States, this time on the west coast. Rebecca had a job in Southern California only half a mile from a local college. Irad was freelancing at the time. “We had the catalog for the college at the house and I said, ‘why don’t you look through it and see what you’re interested in,” said Rebecca. Irad browsed the pages and the courses in
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Rebecca and Irad Carmi
computer programming caught his eye. “I had heard that computer programming was one of the only professions that you could just do. You don’t have to go to school for it,” said Irad. “So the plan was to take a course and see what computer programming was all about. If it works out, maybe I’ll do something with it.” His class went well and it turned out Irad had a real knack for the work. “After music, anything is easy!” he joked. After a few more classes he got his first job and from there moved from company to company, from coast to coast, in various computer programming positions. After a company he worked for went under in the aftermath of 9/11 Irad found himself unemployed. He and his business partner decided to start their own company, using his and Rebecca’s home equity to fund it. They started TOA Technologies, a company that works in cloud-computing services. By 2012, sales reached upwards of $41 million and the company was operating in more than 20 countries. This past fall, Irad sold TOA Technologies to the tech giant Oracle. “The deal went through in the fall and the first thing we said was, ‘where can we give?’” Rebecca said. “We took an inventory of our lives, and CIM was one of the first on our list. It was clear that CIM bringing Irad here was transformative.” Although Irad turned to a career of software instead of music, every year for his birthday Rebecca hires an accompanist and throws a party featuring him. “That way he has to prepare a recital every year,” she said. The Rebecca and Irad Carmi Scholarship was created so the Carmis could give an Israeli student the type of opportunity Irad was afforded all those years ago. The scholarship will go into effect for the fall of 2015. CIM has many different ways to provide support for programs in the Conservatory and the Preparatory and Continuing Education Divisions. For more information, visit cim.edu/donatenow.
Development
Time is Running Out! We’re conducting a challenge! Any new or increased donation you make to the CIM 2014-15 Annual Fund can be matched dollar-for-dollar by a special matching challenge offered by a generous group of CIM leaders. Up to $50,000 will be matched – but only if you make your gift before the June 30 deadline!
JUNE
30
You can DOUBLE your support for CIM students, free concerts and community programs by making a donation today! To learn more about the matching challenge, or to make a gift online, visit cim.edu/challenge. To donate by phone, please call 216.795.3118. Or, mail your donation to: Cleveland Institute of Music Attn: Development Office 11021 East Boulevard Cleveland, OH 44106
Donate now at cim.edu/challenge S P R I N G 2 0 15
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Alumni Snapshot
Jason Vieaux When
walked the red carpet at this year’s Grammy Awards, he estimated he had about a five percent chance of winning; or, as he put it, his chances were “a little better than a roulette wheel.”
Photo: GMD Three
Vieaux is head of the guitar department at CIM and performs and teaches around the world. He’s been featured at every major guitar series in North America and many abroad; he’s soloed with nearly 100 orchestras, including Cleveland, Houston, Toronto and San Diego; he’s recorded 12 albums; and in 2014, his recording “Zapateado” was named one of NPR’s 50 favorite songs of the year. When Vieaux received that accolade he said, “it may be the only time I'm on a list with Beyoncé, Pharrell and Jack White.” Then 2015 came along, and with it, a new list.
“Just happy to be nominated”
First came the nomination, in early December. “I was taking a nap in Melbourne, Florida,” Vieaux remembers. “I was getting ready for a concert with the Escher Quartet for the chamber music society there, and I woke up to all these texts and Twitter notifications on my phone. At first I thought something bad had happened!” But soon the realization began to sink in. “We weren’t really expecting it because we’d submitted so many times before. By that point I had kind of given up on the Grammys. So it was a real, very pleasant shock.” The shock, of course, was that Vieaux’s album Play on the Azica Records label, was just nominated for a Grammy for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. “When I saw who all the other nominees were, I thought, ‘OK, we’ll enjoy the nomination.’ It was my first time so we were just happy to be nominated.” Fast-forward to February and Vieaux is on the red carpet at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. “I wasn’t really nervous about it,” says Vieaux. “We were just going for the experience to walk the red carpet and to take it all in. It was a very different experience from the relatively unglamorous life of touring classical musicians!” Then the categories were read, and winner after winner stepped onto the stage, thanking their friends and families. “And now, Category 78, best solo instrumental classical,” boomed the announcer. “That’s when I became, sort of, focused,” Vieaux says. “When they said Play, it was just like a shot of adrenaline. I think I ran up to the stage!”
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For Vieaux, more than anything in that moment, he felt an immense amount of gratitude. He muses about his predictions of having a slim chance of winning, but in the end it’s really not left up to chance. “It really just comes down to votes,” says Vieaux. “It meant that all the members of the academy, comprising some 13,000 artists, gave it the most votes.”
A Classical Musician from the Start
Vieaux was given his first guitar at the age of five. His mother bought it for him after he raided his parents’ record collection filled with R&B, soul and modern jazz music. But despite this early exposure to iconic guitarists whose images were splashed across their album covers, Vieaux began taking classical music lessons on the guitar. It was after the Buffalo Guitar Quartet visited his school when he was seven years old that Vieaux’s classical training began. “They were doing an outreach program at my school and my mother asked Jeremy Sparks, one of the founding members of the Quartet, if he would come out to our house and give private lessons,” explains Vieaux. “My lessons on the guitar actually started out as classical music. I came to know classical music through the guitar repertoire: nineteenth-century guitar repertoire, exercises, études, studies and that kind of thing. That was where I started.” Vieaux began playing recitals throughout the area and by the time he graduated high school, his mind was made up: he would go to CIM and study with John Holmquist. Holmquist had won the biggest competition back in the ’80s: the Guitar International Competition in Toronto. “They only had the competition once every three years and there weren’t that many winners,” explains Vieaux. “After I auditioned at CIM I didn’t want to go anywhere else. It was great. And I won the GFA [Guitar Foundation of America competition] my junior year, which was unexpected.”
From Cutter to the Carpet
A great teacher and international competition wins weren’t all that CIM afforded Vieaux; it also gave him a roommate who would be with him on the red carpet of the Grammys nearly 25 years later. Alan Bise, CIM alumnus and the school’s current director of Recording Arts and Services, is also the classical producer for (the now Grammy-winning) Azica records and has been working with Vieaux for about 15 years.
Vieaux accepting his Grammy at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.
Vieaux and his wife Erine walk the red carpet.
“Alan and I were roommates our freshman year, in the dorm,” says Vieaux. “It’s a great example of how professional partnerships can start here. It’s something we’re always telling our students. We’re always telling them, ‘be cool!’ because you never know!” But that’s not all. Bruce Egre, the president and chief recording engineer of Azica Records, is also a CIM alumnus who knew Vieaux and Bise at school. Today, he’s the head of the Audio Recording degree program at CIM. In short, Play is a true CIM collaboration.
Life as a Grammy-Winning Artist
“My life was always very busy and crazy,” says Vieaux of the changes in his life now that he dons the “Grammy-winning artist” title. “I’m still performing every week in a different city, but instead of doing one interview per city, I’m doing maybe two or three.” Vieaux will still travel and play with passion and enthusiasm everywhere he goes. He’ll continue to record, collaborate and teach. For Vieaux, “if the word Grammy can draw another guitar enthusiast or non-classical music listener to listen to my Bach album and experience one of the great geniuses of western thought, then that’s really what it’s all about.”
Alan Bise, producer of the Grammy-winning album Play, and his wife, Stefanie Paganini, at the award ceremony.
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a l u m n i n ew s Have some news? Visit cim.edu and click “Newsroom.” At the bottom of the page click “Submit News,” then fill out and submit the form. News is accepted on an ongoing basis and may be held until the next issue.
Alumni Mark Babbitt (MM ’95, Witser) appeared as soloist with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra performing Nino Rota's Trombone Concerto. He was recently promoted to professor of trombone at Illinois State University. Glenn Brown (MM ’71, West) has a piano restoration business with his son, Matthew, and just finished work on a Steinway Art Grant seven-foot piano with 3,150 pieces of inlaid wood. It was once owned by the Sheik of French Morocco and also owned by Mrs. Frank Lloyd Wright until her death. It took them 18 years to complete the restoration and it is now ready for sale. Brown also performs with his jazz group, Glenn Brown's Ambassadors of Jazz. Ryan Downey (MM ’11, Billions) sings on a new recording of Rachmaninoff's “All-Night Vigil” by the Phoenix Chorale and Kansas City Chorale. Within the first week, the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical Chart; #1 on three Amazon sales charts in Opera/Vocal, Chamber, & Classical; #2 on iTunes Classical chart; and it was chosen as an iTunes Editor’s Choice. Richard Glazier (DMA ’95, Pastor) is featured in a new television show on PBS called Broadway to Hollywood. It aired this spring. Two CIM vocal performance alumni recently appeared in L’Italiana in Algeri with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. Samantha Gossard (MM ’12, Cole) sang Zulma and Irene Roberts (MM ’08, Southern, Schiller) sang Isabella. William Johnston (DMA ’11, Vernon) performed the West Coast premiere of Mark Gresham’s “Three Essays for Viola and Double String Orchestra” with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra in March. University Circle Wind Ensemble will present the premiere of “This is My Body” by CIM 22
alumnus Kevin Krumenauer (MM ’03, Brouwer), a new piece for mezzo, tenor, winds and percussion based on sacred texts. April Martin (MM ’11, AD ’13, Schiller, Cole) will perform as an apprentice artist with Central City Opera in summer 2015. She will sing Antonia in Man of La Mancha, Suivante de la Duchesse and Amante # 1 in Don Quixote chez la Duchesse and will be part of the ensemble for La Traviata. Joseph Rebman (BM ’13, Kondonassis, Allen) will be a featured composer at the TUTTI 2015 New Music Festival held at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. His piece “Mnemosyne” for harp and flute will be performed by the faculty in a chamber recital. In January, Sharon Roffman (BM ’99, MM ’01, Weilerstein) premiered a new violin concerto by Bruce Adolphe called “I Will Not Remain Silent” with Michael Stern conducting the IRIS orchestra in Memphis, Tennessee. This concerto is inspired by the life of Joachim Prinz, a rabbi from Berlin during the Nazi era, who immigrated to the United States, developed a friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr., and became a vocal supporter of the civil rights movement. With the amazing support of IRIS, and invaluable help from Dr. Marilyn Taylor and Erica Sears, Roffman created a high school curriculum website based on Prinz's philosophies, centering on the role of music and art in the Holocaust and the Civil Rights movement and the importance of speaking out against discrimination and injustice. Roffman and other IRIS musicians have been working with students at Overton High and Soulsville charter school since August. The curriculum includes great music playlists and videos and is open to all at sharonroffman.com/prinzproject. Eduardo Valdes (MM ’86, Vassos) has been invited to be the main speaker for the 2015 commencement ceremonies at his undergraduate alma mater, Mount Union College. Valdes has been singing at the Metropolitan Opera for 21 years. Student Rachel Kunce (voice, Southern); alumnae Alejandra Martinez (PS ’14, Schiller), Megan Thompson (MM ’14, Billions) and Lyndsay Moy (MM ’13 Billions); and CIM Staff Pianist Adam Whiting performed at the First Baptist Church of Greater Cleveland during its seventh annual Domestic Violence Awareness Fundraiser in October.
Appointments Allison Gagnon (DMA ’99, Epperson) has been appointed to the rank of associate professor of music at the UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC, beginning with the 2014-15 academic year. She has been on faculty in the School of Music since graduating from CIM and established the graduate program in collaborative piano there in 2001. In May 2014 she was also the recipient of a UNCSA Excellence in Teaching Award. Conrad Jones (BM ’11, Sachs, Miller) is the newly appointed principal trumpet of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. This season, he performed George Tsontakis’s trumpet concerto “True Colors” to tremendous acclaim. It was his first performance in his new role. During the summer season he is principal trumpet of the Britt Festival Orchestra in Jacksonville, OR. Kathryn McManus (MM ’74, Chalifoux) was appointed executive director by the Board of Directors of the American Harp Society, Inc., in March. Dr. Shannon Thomas (DMA ’11, Kantor) was appointed assistant professor of violin at Florida State University. Previous faculty appointments include the University of Southern Mississippi and Lee University. Thomas spends her summers as education director of the Innsbrook Institute Summer Music Academy & Festival in Innsbrook, Missouri, and is on faculty at Kinhaven Music School in Weston, Vermont. Alexandra Thompson (BM ’11, Geber) won a section cello spot in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
Prizewinners Chia-Ying Chan (MM ’10, Brown, Schenly) won first place in the American Protégé International Competition of Romantic Music in 2014. Chan gave her Carnegie Hall debut performance in March for the American Protégé Winners’ recital where she also received her certificate in American Protégé. Dr. Grace Fong (MM ’03, DMA ’06, Babayan) recently received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Colburn School where she performed and gave a master class. She also performed recently as soloist with Russia’s Mariinsky Theater Orchestra under Valery Gergiev.
Rixiang Huang (BM ’17, Pompa-Baldi, Schenly) won the silver medal in the 2015 New York International Artists Piano Competition Category C (age 18-35), held by the New York International Artists Association. Huang will have his Carnegie solo debut on June 30 in Carnegie Weill Recital Hall. The Verona Quartet, which includes CIM alumni Dorothy Ro (BM ’11, Linda Cerone, David Cerone) and Jonathan Ong (MM ’12, Kantor), received Second Prize as well as the ProQuartet-CEMC Prize at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition in London. Ro attributes her passion for string quartets to her time at CIM and to the Cavani Quartet, which was an important influence in her chamber music studies. In recognition of a 29-year career with the Metropolitan Opera, CIM alumna Lenore Rosenberg (AD ’84, Vassos) received the Gerda Lissner Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement award for her dedication to young singers and the musical arts in April at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall.
Faculty In March, Antonio Pompa-Baldi (piano), together with the Fresno Philharmonic conducted by Maestro Theodore Kuchar, performed all five piano concertos by Beethoven in one weekend. The highlight of CIM guitar head Jason Vieaux’s (head, guitar) spring season was taking home a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for his latest solo album, Play. In February, he released an album called Together with harpist Yolanda Kondonassis. The duo performed together at CIM in May as part of the Guitars International Festival. Vieaux’s winter performance highlights include performances with the New Mexico Philharmonic, Akron Symphony Orchestra and Oakridge Symphony Orchestra, as well as recitals at the Florida Guitar Foundation, Glema Mahr Center in Kentucky, Lee University, the Long Island Guitar Festival and with Kondonassis at 92Y in New York City. He also performed a five-concert tour of Korea, a concert at Live Connections in Philadelphia and two concerts with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In November, Richard Weiner (co-head, timpani/percussion) performed Ravel’s complete “Daphnis et Chloé” with the National Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of
Matthias Pintscher, in Washington, DC. The NSO has three former CIM students as members of the orchestra. In addition to Mr. Weiner, Robert Klieger, assistant principal percussionist of the Milwaukee Symphony, also was engaged for that week.
Students Chaconne Klaverenga (guitar, Vieaux) was a featured solo artist for the Women of the Guitar Festival in Buffalo, NY, in March 2015. Klaverenga performed a solo concert and taught master classes for this event. Andrew Stock (composition, Fitch) was one of ten composers from around the country selected for the LA Phil’s National Composers Intensive, Next on Grand New Music Festival in May. Stock’s win earns him the chance to write a new work for the LA-based new music ensemble wild Up, which will be rehearsed and refined during the festival. Selected commissioned works will be performed publically and wild Up will record all of the commissioned works for the composers. As part of this fully funded competition, Stock will also attend LA Phil concerts, observe rehearsals and have the opportunity to work individually with guest composers in master classes.
Preparatory Owen Lockwood (violin, Sims) was selected to participate in The Brian Lewis Young Artist Program, a tuition-free opportunity for 12 highly gifted violinists up to the age of 18 to receive intense daily private instruction. The program will cover concerto repertoire, show pieces, sonata literature, études and technical studies, solo Bach, Ysaye Solo Sonatas, how to rehearse with both piano and as soloist with orchestra and how to perform.
In Memoriam Ann Cherry, a CIM flute student in the mid ’60s, died recently in London, where she had lived for many years. She was a senior lecturer in flute at Trinity College of Music and coordinator of wind, brass and percussion at Trinity College of Music, Junior Department. She was also a mentor for the newly created Certificate of Teaching offered by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. Cherry was secretary of the British Flute Society, a music critic for Music Teacher magazine and an adjudicator at many festivals and competitions.
Virginia Phelps “Tommy” Clancy (BM ’42, van der Veer), died on March 31, 2015, in Raleigh, NC. She was also the sister of CIM alumna Marjorie Kampenga. Clancy and her brother and sisters grew up in a family devoted to music and were all accomplished musicians. Clancy was an excellent accompanist for voice students and was especially skilled in this capacity due to her exceptional knowledge, sight-reading skills and deep musicality. Dominick John Cocca, Sr. (BM ’53, Rettew) passed away on March 30, 2015. He was a veteran of the United States Army and had a lifelong career in teaching music. Jeffery Eaton (BM ’79, MM ’81, Harris) passed away in Eugene, OR, after a brief battle with cancer. He earned a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, and bachelor's and master's degrees in cello from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1979 and 1981 respectively, studying with Alan J. Harris. A position as a cellist in the Eugene Symphony brought him to Eugene in 1983. In addition to playing for the Symphony for more than 30 years, Eaton was the managing director and later executive director of the Oregon Mozart Players for more than 14 years. He also served as secretary-treasurer of the local musicians’ union. Ethel Bonita (Bonnie) Potts (BM ’40, MM ’42, Rose) passed away at age 96. Potts was a member of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra under Robert Shaw and was a former CIM faculty member active in chamber music performance in and around Cleveland and Atlanta. A member of the Kansas City Symphony during WWII, she was one of a group of professional orchestra musicians who, when they were displaced by returning veterans, founded “The Orchettes” to provide music for dinner and dancing in the Cleveland area as well as a source of income at a time when the only woman in the Cleveland Orchestra was the harpist. They also founded the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra with Hyman Schandler, the principal second violin of the Cleveland Orchestra, to continue performing the classical symphonic repertoire. Nancy H. Wild (BM ’65, Music History), died at home on January 24, 2015. She was a piano teacher as well as a volunteer piano player and song leader for Head Start and several nursing homes. She was active in the Unitarian Players, a community theater group that she and her husband helped create. She and her husband enjoyed travel and hosted many Cleveland International Program participants in their home and visited many of their countries. S P R I N G 2 0 15
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Notes is published four times a year by the Cleveland Institute of Music. A PDF of the current issue of Notes is available at cim.edu.
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